The Counting Crows have been making their way across the United States on their Somewhere Under Wonderland tour with Citizen Cope and Hollis Brown. Mike Montali, the lead singer of Hollis Brown talks with Adam Duritz, lead singer of the Counting Crows about the tour, his writing process, and how he adapts to larger crowds and stages.

Mike: This is Mike Montali from Hollis Brown and Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows and we’re on tour together. We dropped our sound guy Jimmy off at his hotel down here and he literally…we left him right by the 59th street bridge because they were like “Hey man, all you have to do is go over this bridge here and you’ll be where you wanna be.” And of course he did the total opposite of that. So he’s calling me the whole day and he’s like “Where am I? Where did you leave me?” and I’m like “All you had to do was go over the bridge man.” I was like, “I’m home, I’ll come pick you up and drop you off.”

Adam: [Laughing] You don’t want your tour manager to get lost.

Mike: Yeah get lost in the hood on your day off in New York. But yeah Queens was good. Saw my mom, saw my grandmother, had some pasta and it was really, really good. I was actually trying to write this song but my voice has been a little rough so I thought it might be better not to sing.

Adam: You’ve had a lot of double days, that’s a lot of work.

Mike: Yeah, we’ve been doing like…I guess we have, because we haven’t had many days off. Even on the off days we go and gig somewhere else.

Adam: You need an off day to rest your voice.

Mike: The doubles are the ones that kill me. Our set is like 25-30 minutes you know, so the second I’m done with that I’m warm. Then I cool off for 3 hours and then I have to go and do the second show so by then it’s like…then the next day I just can’t talk. How’s your voice holding up?

Adam: I need days like yesterday where I don’t talk to anybody. It’s the same thing. I need days…there’s too much friends and family in the last few weeks. Too many fuckin’ friends, too much family around talking to me about the gig.

Mike: What stop are you looking forward to now?

Adam: I love that place we played the other night (Stage AE in Pittsburgh, PA). It’s funny, because whenever we go there with one of the road show bands they always walk into that place in Pittsburgh and they think, “This is not a good venue” because there’s something about when it’s empty that doesn’t look particularly great about it, it’s like a concrete field. Then it turns out to be the greatest, that’s a great venue. I kind of love it. The one in Columbus is just like it. The same guy built it I think. We’re playing that one in the afternoon. But it’ll still be a good show. Then we’ve got Red Rocks coming up now.

Mike: Yeah, Red Rocks will be good. I liked the Pittsburgh one, like you said, when I first got there it looked not like much but once the people came in, there was such a good energy in the crowd. There was something kind of magical about it.

Adam: Yeah like, something about the way those venues are set up. They look like nothin’ when you walk into them in the afternoon but then when the people come in I they just funnel excitement toward the stage. It’s a weird thing and kind of amazing. I’m looking forward to the shows around here. I’ve never played the place tonight in New York so that’ll be cool.

Mike: I saw Deer Tick there a couple of years ago. I think that’s the only time I’ve been there though, it’s pretty cool. It’s like a big concrete slab and this big stage. We’ll get some good energy when it gets dark. That’s the one thing I’ve noticed about this tour is especially for me, it’s our first time on big stages, so the energy that you bring, as an indie band in a club you can use your raw energy and move around a lot, and people are right on top of you. But on these stages, they’re way out there, way out there in the boondocks just watching you so you kind of have to change your delivery a little. It’s something I’m trying to learn. Do you have any advice?

Adam: You have to change a little bit because it’s a bigger space. But also, you have to not get thrown by the fact that the crowd isn’t right in your face. Because when we were in D.C. at Wolf Trap a few nights ago, there were thousands of people, and the lawn was filled when you guys played. There were easily 3 or 4,000 on it. They’re in the distance, but the main thing is just not to get thrown by them being right in your face and by the fact that maybe the seats in front of you are empty in the beginning because the truth is, there are tons of people, but it’s important to keep your show on stage. Like it’s nice to get stuff from the audience but the truth of the matter is, you’ve gotta keep as much of it on stage as possible because you can’t depend on an audience. It’s not their responsibility to fire you up every night. There’s gonna be nights, they may just be really far away. And they might not give you the same kind of energy and you have to provide it yourself on that night. It’s a weird thing too, because when you’re opening, you’re playing in the daylight which is the weirdest thing. You come from clubs and you play really late at night and then all of the sudden you’re playing in the daylight. That really threw me at first when we first went on tour, it’s fuckin’ weird to be playing in the daylight.

Mike: Yeah I know what you’re saying. Atlanta was the weirdest one for me because it was a “bring your own picnic” thing. People were eating cheese and drinking wine, and there were a shit load of ’em. There were people everywhere and I was like “This is weird.” But sometimes, and I know because I go to a lot of concerts, but, from being in the audience to being on stage, the energy is just all in your mind. Some people could be having the best time of their life, even if they’re not clapping or anything you know. But on stage as an artist, we move around a lot, so we’re trying to be all over the place. But I’m starting to realize that on those big stages maybe I don’t have to move around as much maybe I can just take longer walks and take my time a little more. One of my favorite things that you guys do in your show, is you break it down to acoustic, and you do “God of Ocean’s Tide.” I love that song, it’s just an interesting point in the set because you just strip it down and it goes over so well and, what’s up with that song? How did that song come about?

Adam: I really love that song. It’s the first song we wrote for the new record. It’s also my favorite piece. The writing of it is just chords and words but the arrangement we did when we went into the studio and how it works between all the guitars passing back and forth and the flutes and the different keyboard lines coming through it…I love the arrangement on that song. We really did a lot of work arranging on this record and it should feel effortless when you listen to it so that you don’t even notice it.

Mike: It does, that’s why it works so well. It’s interesting because you say that but when I was listening to it I was like, it doesn’t seem that way. It’s kind of like you said, you put so much effort in, and I know that from experience. There’s a song on our record, where we put so much work into trying to make it seem effortless but still full and still simple so it’s kind of the same thing where I was listening to that song today and I was kind of like “Man this is really stripped down and awesome.” And now to hear you say that you had so much work into arranging it, it’s pretty interesting I think.

Adam: The truth is I think people overrate songwriting and underrate arrangements…because they don’t understand necessarily. If you love a band, then what you really love is the arrangement part, because the songwriting might just be one guy. And if you love a band, it probably has to do with the work they collaborate on and that’s more likely to be the arrangement part of it. For example, as good as a songwriter as Keith Richards is, I feel like a Stones album is more than a solo album probably because they all contribute in their own and they have a way of doing it that makes it kind of magic.

Adam: The difference between being a solo artist and being a band is the arrangement part and people really undervalue that. I think because they don’t understand. It’s easy to see songwriting; it’s just written right on there, that that guy wrote the song. But that’s just chords and words. You know? And what you do as a band and why I love being in a band, is that next step to me—the arrangement part of it, the collaboration. That’s where music really gets cool to me.

Mike: You can say that about all the greats. Look at Bob Dylan. The songs obviously are above and beyond but in those early days if he didn’t have the Byrds and Joan Baez and all these other artists covering them in their own arrangements and their own sound, he might not have become the songwriter he is. I think that’s a really good point, that the sound is what draws people in but the songs still have to back it up.

Adam: And it’s not just the way you set your amp. I think some people think sound is the way you record your drums or the way you set your amp but it’s more than that. It’s the jazz of it. It is way more in the subtle things you do collaborating to turn a collection of just words and chords into a song and a piece of music.

Mike: Well it’s interesting you mention the jazz thing because I talked to you a little bit about it backstage, I can’t remember which gig it was but I was saying like a jazz singer trapped in this singer-songwriter thing and when I listen to your record, I was wondering, because you’re known for doing your own thing live, doing it a different way every time kind of like the great jazz singers would like a Tony Bennett—do you do that when you record or do you write it out?

Adam: I tend to start singing when the band starts playing, so I’m always recording that. That way I can work on trying different things and coming up with different ideas for how to sing a song. I’ll sing all the takes with the band too also because I want whatever take we end up going with to be really influenced by what I’m doing, too. So I’m in there while they’re experimenting with figuring out their parts, I’m experimenting with figuring out my part too and hopefully you settle on something that’s really cool. I love to put everything that’s in the take in, lots of quirks and weird moments and unique things. So it’s composed of a bunch of different takes probably because I’m looking for every last interesting thing that I can find. I think there’s a great melody to be found in songs, but it doesn’t mean you should sing it that way every time. Sometimes I do, there’s melodies I really love. But they can always change, too.

Mike: It seems like it’s a constant evolution almost, and it’s always evolving and always changing. That’s how I approach it when I write a melody. When I’m recording I try to stick to it as best I can but I love the mistakes, like you said, that’s where character comes in. I feel like people connect to the humanity of hearing someone maybe making a mistake.

Adam: I think that stuff is just a lot of fun sometimes, too. I also think that melodies and other things are underrated, because you get your lyrics. You’ve lived your day, so you get your lyrics from that but melody you kind of have to pull out of the air. And finding a really great melody that will stand the test of time, that’s like gold to me. And that’s really hard to do. I think people overstate sometimes how much I change everything. Because I really do work to find a melody that means something to me, that I love to sing and I’m just not glued to it. I think it’s important to remember and understand the value of it because melody is less quantifiable but maybe a lot more valuable than other things. It’s important to strike a balance between innovating and being creative but also valuing the important parts of what you’ve created already.

Mike: You have a lot of lyrics, you know.

Adam: A lot of fucking words to remember.

Mike: Another thing I wanted to talk about was the Outlaw Roadshow, that’s where we met. And in case some of the listeners don’t know what it is or what it’s about, you could fill everybody in.

Adam: I met Ryan years ago because he interviewed me and that five-minute interview turned into a two hour talk which turned into a friendship. We’ve been putting on these shows for six or seven years now, at CMJ, in New York and also during South by Southwest. This year for the first time we expanded into Nashville for the summer. We just try to find a lot of great bands, great musicians, great songwriters and we get ’em to come play for us from all over the world. And then we put on a free show, and we promote it and try to get people to come check out these bands.

Mike: Do you think there’s a void of that in the music world? Is there any grand end game for you guys, or do you just want to put the music that you like into more people’s attention span? Or is it something that you want to grow into a 20,000-person festival?

Adam: I wish we could grow it without changing too much, which is the hard part. I really love the Roadshow, and I know it was a void that was missing in my life just for me personally. In a selfish way I love it. When you’re starting out you’re surrounded by musicians, you’re playing the clubs. Someone asked me this earlier in an interview, “Does the roadshow remind you of when you were young playing in clubs, does it make you miss the clubs?” And it’s not really that, I don’t miss the clubs necessarily but I miss the way my life was then. I had a lot of friends who played music, and like a peer group, a lot of people I knew did the same thing that I did. Because that kind of evaporates when you make it in some way, unless you want to hang out at the Grammy’s or something. That’s not really my bag.

But when we started the road show up again I suddenly found myself surrounded by other musicians for the first time in a long time. And that was really great for me, to be around a lot of people who were doing the exact same things in life that I am, and I understand exactly what they’re going through. But it’s really all about playing music, and nice to have friends that do it too. I’d like for it to get huge because I think what Ryan is doing is amazing and I think it helps music. I think people sometimes worry that there’s not any music left out there because it’s a much smaller group of songs that gets played on the radio. And there’s no real MTV playing music anymore. People either think there isn’t any music out there, it isn’t as good as it used to be or they think that indie music isn’t for them. A lot of music journalism is very exclusionary, it’s about how “we’re really cool and you’re not.” And I think people worry that they’re not going to understand, or if it’s independent music it must be something they won’t get.

But the truth is, you go to the Outlaw Roadshow, you can stand there all day watching great bands play that you will love. And the truth is, nowadays is a much better time for music as a fan than it’s ever been before. There’s so many good bands out there, so many good songwriters. It’s so much more affordable to make records, and people do. It was pretty rare in the past for a band to be independent at all and make more than one record. You couldn’t distribute them and you couldn’t make them but now you can make them and distribution is as simple as uploading on to Bandcamp. So bands get to make multiple albums which gives them the chance to get really good. As a listener, as a fan, you’re drowning in good music if you just knew where to look for it. And I think the roadshow hopefully shows people that.